Every year the Defense Authorization bill is filled with golden nuggets of little noticed provisions that make a big impact on the federal acquisition community.

This year they range from a strong focus on making it easier for agencies to buy commercial items to mixed messages around the use of other transaction agreements to the ever increasing concerns about too many bid protests.

This is, by far, not a comprehensive list, but several that most federal and contractor employees interested in acquisition should know about.

The House passed the NDAA on July 26. The Senate is expected to take up the bill next week. House and Senate conferees agreed to the bill on July 23, clearing the way to passage.

The federal government’s procurement professionals are bullish about improvements to federal acquisition, according to a recently released survey, but it definitely isn’t because they’re high on innovation.

Rather, the ninth biennial Acquisition Policy Survey, compiled by the Professional Services Council and Grant Thornton Public Sector, found recurring challenges such as budget instability, hiring difficulties and onerous regulatory burdens were offset by improvements to the human quotient of the acquisition workforce.

The government sought to hire up acquisition professionals in recent years, and that talent is now more seasoned, skilled and “a little more experienced,” according to PSC Executive Vice President and Counsel Alan Chvotkin.

“Some optimism comes from having a better understanding of their job,” Chvotkin told reporters Wednesday.

A research and development collaboration management company has been awarded a contract to helm a technology prototype consortium as part of a new acquisition process employed by the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Atlantic, in Charleston, South Carolina.

SPAWAR awarded an other transaction authority to Advanced Technology International, of Summerville, South Carolina, for consortium management for SPAWAR’s Information Warfare Research Project (IWRP).

Under the contract, Advanced Technology International will manage a group of defense contractors who will complete projects for the government that address SPAWAR technology needs, and the consortium will facilitate competition for projects. Topics will be open to competition beginning in August 2018, the SPAWAR Systems Center Atlantic said.

The contract is worth $100 million over three years.

IWRP OTA is an acquisition tool that allows nontraditional industry partners to work with organizations across SPAWAR to prototype technology that supports naval information warfare capabilities. IWRP focuses on information technology areas such as cyberwarfare, cloud computing and data science.

The Government Accountability Office recently upheld a first of its kind protest of a contract awarded under the non-traditional contracting methodology known as other transaction authority.

The protest and GAO’s decision have stirred debate over the future of OTAs and their potential to fundamentally disrupt federal acquisition.

First, some background. OTAs enable certain federal agencies, most prominently the Defense Department, to enter into commercial contracts outside the constraints of the Federal Acquisition Regulation. Historically, OTAs have been used to engage commercial companies during the research and development of new technologies without burdening them with requirements and costs associated with the FAR, which can be a major disincentive for companies to work with the government.

But the attractiveness of OTAs was often limited by the fact that once a selected technology entered final development and production — in other words, was ready for market — the FAR came back into play, thus obviating some of the very benefits the initial OTA was intended to provide. Advocates have long argued that extending the authority through full production or deployment (known as “production authority”) was the key to their success and to enabling the government’s access to the full range of emerging capabilities. Two years ago, Congress decided to do just that, at least for Defense. And that decision has, in turn, been instrumental in the dramatic spike in OTA activity since.

The Defense Security Service is preparing to take over all background investigations for civilian and defense agencies and doesn’t want to inherit stale and potentially broken processes, officials told Nextgov.

The Defense Department office is currently reviewing white papers obtained through an other transaction authority solicitation seeking innovative methods for conducting background checks of current and potential federal employees who need security clearances.

The project is not about the technology behind background investigations process but rather how to innovate the process itself—from when the SF-86 form is filled out to when the clearance decision is made by the agency—according to Tara Petersen, head of DSS Office of Acquisitions, and her deputy, Stephen Heath.